Subject: “Old Can Be Used Instead of New:” Shape-Note Singing and the Crisis of Modernity in the New South, 1880-1920, by Gavin James Campbell
In this essay, Campbell situates the politics of shape-note singing in the context of the political, social, and economic tensions regarding modernity and traditionalism in the South. He discusses attempts at revising The Sacred Harp in a climate of ambivalent notions of heritage and change. Following the Civil War, increased Northeastern production of seven-shape-note urban gospel texts challenged the supremacy of earlier texts, such as The Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony, which had their roots in the Second Great Awakening and early folk traditions. These conflicting musical idioms paralleled the extending reach of national market forces. The old Southern economy was predicated on subsistence farming and was challenged by transforming modes of transportation and agricultural and industrial production. Shape-note text revisionists responded to the demands of Southern rural Conventions and changing musical tastes, attempting to mediate between these ambivalent ideas.
To what extent can the convention of immutability in The Sacred Harp text today be traced to competing economic forces in the South in the late 19th century?
Historical question I’m curious to learn more about: did the Populist movement validate and reinforce earlier forms of shape-note singing?
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